‘The Maisie Collection: Volume 1’ from Warner Archive

MGM had great success with several movie franchises in the 1930s and ‘40s, including “The Thin Man” with William Powell and Myrna Loy, the Andy Hardy family comedies with Mickey Rooney and the Dr. Kildare medical dramas with Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore. The studio hit pay dirt again in 1939, when blond, brassy and endearing Ann Sothern was cast as a good-hearted honky tonk singer named Maisie Ravier. The first in the series, “Maisie” found her in the Wild West and falling in love with Robert Young. The low-budget programmer was such a hit that Sothern made 10 films as the character. Warner Archive has just released the first five on DVD — “Maisie,” 1940’s “Congo Maisie” and “Gold Rush Maisie,” and 1941’s “Maisie Was a Lady” and “Ringside Maisie.”